In response to: https://blogs.ubc.ca/chayabains/2014/11/

Zappos, an online shoe retailer based in Nevada, has been selling shoes with an interesting business model. Zappos prides itself in taking care of its employees. By slightly lowering salaries they are able to give employees great medical and preferable hours. All this would be great, but Zappos sells shoes, an industry in which “Child labor is … very common”. These “employees” also are paid less but receive none of the improved working conditions. Zappos is clever in the way they create shared value, by taking an industry renowned for adverse working conditions and sugar-coating it with sandwiches for their direct staff. In so doing, Zappos is able to conjure the illusion of actually caring about their company’s actions. While customers believe they are supporting a conscientious company they are, in effect perpetuating the “inhumane working conditions” of children overseas. Consumers continue to be duped by the halo affect, this is shown by the huge increase in predicted profits expected by the end of 2015. At the end of the day, everything is marketing and consumers need to take a step back and evaluate whether or not what the company promises is actually what they deliver. These shoes are not as wonderful as they are made to seem.

Photo: http://bit.ly/1YlwiTr